


Slowly Dimming Flames

by Meynara



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Platonic Kidge, Semi-Ambiguous Ending, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture, set somewhere in S2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 06:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17219045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meynara/pseuds/Meynara
Summary: When Keith and Pidge are captured by the Galra, at first they think little of it, knowing their friends would come for them.But then Keith is badly injured and unable to do much of anything thanks to the care from their captors. He focuses on getting Pidge free, on doing what little he can to help her escape.After that? All he can do is wait.And hope.Keith has never been good at either of those things.





	Slowly Dimming Flames

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fandoms_Everywhere_United](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandoms_Everywhere_United/gifts).



> Written for the Galtea Server Exchange

Keith felt more separated from himself than he had in a long time, feeling almost alone even though he had Pidge there with him, her small body shivering against his, holding him up as they watched the door to their small cell. They’d been stripped of their armor, and Pidge no longer had her glasses (not that she’d really  _ needed  _ them), their weapons gone, leaving them in just their torn undersuits.

His undersuit was even more torn than hers, Keith having fought tooth and nail to try and get them both free, trying to get them home, to the point that their captors, cruel Galra they were, had rendered Keith unable to move, both of his legs bent at unnatural angles where there  _ shouldn’t  _ be angles at all, confined to the lower leg. Pidge, in her way, had been spared the trouble -- but refused to leave Keith’s side.

“Pidge, next time the door opens, you need to get out of here,” Keith said, his voice shaking but filled with determination. “The guards have all been large and slow. The only advantage they’ve had has been having us in an enclosed space...trying to protect one another. I’m not getting out of here, but you--”

“Keith, no.” He could feel small hands, small arms wrapping around his chest, his shoulders, hand pressing into his harm -- refusing to let go of him. “We’re a team. No one gets left behind, you remember that?”

A low growl built in Keith’s chest, eyes turning to glare at the younger, smaller Paladin. “Look, you’re  **_not_ ** going to be leaving me behind if you leave! I  _ can’t  _ move, Pidge. There’s no getting around that. And I’m too  **heavy** for you to carry. So you need to go, and get help. We’ll be better off if you can get out,  _ both  _ of us. You’ll be safe, and you’ll -- you’ll be able to get me help.”

Looking closely at him, Pidge could see traits she hadn’t seen before making themselves visible thanks to the stress they were under. His skin was growing darker, a somewhat unnatural hue, his pupils thinning and lengthening into slits, his teeth seeming to look sharper.

His hair fluffier.

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t known about his heritage, after all -- but short of his ability to use the luxite blade (which had also been taken), there hadn’t been anything visibly different about him. This made things a bit different but…

“No. Keith, I’m not leaving you behind. Shiro would never forgive me.  _ Hunk  _ would never forgive me.” Mentioning Keith’s first friend along with his boyfriend had an effect, but it was short of the desired effect, causing Keith’s eyes to widen for a moment before hardening.

“That’s all the more reason for you to  _ go _ . They have to know where we are. You can get free and that will give them what they need to know to come find us. Find  _ me _ . I can’t get out, but  _ you  _ can.” His breath was shaking even as he turned his gaze to look back at the door to their cell. “Please. I can’t  **do** anything right now. Not without them coming close to me -- let me do this much for you, Katie. I can draw their attention to give you time to escape.  _ Let me save my best friend. _ ”

Pidge’s mouth opened to protest, but then there was rustling at the door, their current guard standing outside the door to give them a moment before entering -- not because they were being kind, far from it -- because they expected Keith and Pidge to be together to make it easier for them.

That was how Keith had earned his first leg fracture, which had turned into a complete break with little effort on the Galra’s part.

Breath hitching in her throat, Pidge got up on bare feet, moving away from Keith and casting one last look in his direction before the door opened, admitting a brute of a Galra, who stepped fully into the little cell before realizing the two Paladins weren’t huddled together. Turning, he went to look for Pidge only for her to be darting out of the door.

“You’d better hope we don’t catch your little girlfriend, Red, because if I get my hands on her, I’ll do everything I’ve done to you, to her...and then some.” The Galra growled even as he pressed a button that sounded the alarm, letting the others know there was someone running free.

Keith probably should have cared a bit more than he did, but instead of caring he laughed at the Galra, his breathing coming harder than it had been. “She isn’t my girlfriend, but I know she won’t get caught. She’s our stealth master for a reason.”

The Galra growled once more, booted foot stomping down against one of Keith’s legs, which in turn only made Keith laugh louder, eye clenched shut. (Because it was laugh or scream, and he did not want to give this creature the satisfaction of making him scream, especially if it wouldn’t help Pidge any, wouldn’t help anyone any.) By the time his eyes were open again, the Galra had left and the door was shut.

A few minutes later, the alarm ceased to blare.

Shortly after that, Keith fell unconscious.

* * *

 

Keith lost track of the time not long after Pidge escaped. He only knew that she had succeeded, that she had gotten to her Lion, because the Galra guard that had been looking over the both of them had been replaced, with the new one gloating about his downfall.

“He can’t even torture you correctly, can he, Paladin?” The new guard’s voice was sickeningly sweet, her body deceptively smaller than the last one had been, even as she crudely set his legs, cooing all the while. “It’s a good thing he’s being shown how to take care of prisoners now, experiencing it first hand, no one else will get the horrible treatment you did. We can’t expect to keep prisoners around if he ends up killing them, after all.”

Of course, Keith said nothing in response to the female, just blearily glared at her. Even with his legs set, he still couldn’t move -- and even if he tried, it would only cause more damage, and more punishment would come. Temper he might have, but he also had patience when it was necessary…

...and being forced to remain mobile? That was certainly one way to remain patient. He knew he needed to let himself heal as much as he could, needed to be able to be mobile if the team were unable to rescue him.

He just needed to hold out long enough for them to get there. He could do that.

He would do that.

Of course, he’d do better with that if the damn Galra looking over him would quit talking to him, quit pretending she was doing him any favors when, really, the only remote favor she had done was splint his legs and set them, and even that had been sloppy and done without the aid of medicine proper.

When she reached down to shake him, however, he noticed how cool she felt compared to himself, as if she was a spring breeze and he was midsummer heat. She didn’t notice, however, shaking him and trying to get his attention, which earned her an unimpressed stare.

“If you’re not going to be grateful to me, then, I guess I’ll have to get...creative. I’m sure you won’t break from this…” She dropped him to the ground, unhitching what looked to be a cudgel of some sort, dulled and dented along the sides without any sharp edges.

Keith didn’t know what to expect, though he tried to curl himself up as best as he could, to give as little area to hit as possible -- a reflexive move from when he was younger, something he could do without thinking, given thinking was a bit beyond him in that moment.

However, that left more than enough for her to work with, raining down blows against the side of his body, against his broken shins, against the outside of his thigh multiple times until suddenly, inside something physically  _ snapped  _ \-- and Keith was  **screaming** . Heedless of the fact his other leg was likewise broken, he kicked out, trying to push the Galra woman away even as he continued to scream, and scream, and scream.

He was still screaming in pain even as someone blasted down the door -- blasting down the Galra immediately after, causing her corpse to fall to the side, revealing the one face Keith wanted to see the most.

“Hunk…?” Keith’s voice rasped, fighting to not scream more, fighting to keep himself conscious even as he felt a pain in his chest, a wetness at his side, blackness swarming in at the edge of his vision.

“Keith, thank God, I’ve got him, guys, Lance and Pidge, cover me, I’m grabbing him.”

The last thing he felt was a gentle warmth coming from his boyfriend, soft mutters being spoken directly into his ear as he lost consciousness once more.

* * *

 

Truth be told, Keith hadn’t expected to ever wake again. He’d seen Hunk, he’d gotten Pidge to safety, he’d heard they were saving Red from where she’d been held when he and Pidge had been captured initially.

He’d done everything that he could, and things were getting worse for him, and he could recognize that everything that had happened with him wasn’t good for his health, his continued living. The fact that Hunk had gotten to him and had held him close seemed like a good way to go, comforting even if he was in pain.

But he heard a hissing sound, felt colder than he could remember having felt before, could see a figure seemingly hovering over him as fog moved out from between them, the figure growing clearer in his vision the longer he looked, one of his hands reaching up to rub at his eyes until he could sit up.

“Woah, woah, easy there, Keith. Slow and steady.” Hunk. It was Hunk. Keith would know that voice anywhere, though he hated the fact he could hear a hint of fear behind the words he spoke. “Slow and steady, here, let me help you, how do you feel, are you in any pain? Any pain at all?”

There was a hand splayed against his back, supporting him as he looked around -- and he realized belatedly that they weren’t in the room where the pods normally were. And he was almost certainly in a pod. “What -- I feel, I think I feel fine? Hunk, what happened? Is Pidge okay? Are -- were you able to--”

“Pidge is fine, we got Red out of the base you two were being held in, everything is fine -- we’re just waiting for you.” There was a quiet moment before Hunk reached over, hands gently reaching underneath Keith’s armpits before lifting him up and out of the pod, holding him close, actually refusing to let his feet touch the ground, instead moving to place him on a bed that was nearby. They were in what passed for an infirmary on the castleship.

“Hunk, what are you--”

“Keith, we almost lost you.” Once Keith was seated on the bed, legs swung out over the side, Hunk engulfed him in a hug. “ _ I _ almost lost you. Coran said if we hadn’t gotten there when we did, if you’d been left there even an hour longer, you wouldn’t have  _ made  _ it.”

In retrospect, knowing how close he came to losing his life only made Keith feel more relieved, leaning into the hug he was getting from Hunk, pressing his face against Hunk’s neck and taking a deep breath. “But you  **did** get me. I  _ did  _ make it. I’m  _ here _ , I’m  **_alive_ ** . Thank you, Hunk.” He paused to take another breath before adding, “ _ Thank you _ for bringing me  **home** .”


End file.
